Heck, David

ORAL HISTORY OF DAVID HECK
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
November 19, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November the 19th, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC, 170 Robertsville Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history from Mr. David Heck about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. David, please state your full name, date of birth, and place of birth.
MR. HECK: My name is David Blair Heck. I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, August 28th, 1948.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was your father’s name, place of birth, and date?
MR. HECK: My father’s name was Gillas C. – Gillas Conley Heck. He was born, I believe, June 11, 1911, in Bell County, Kentucky.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mother’s maiden name, place of birth, and date?
MR. HECK: My mother was Mabel Lucinda Creech. She was born February 14th, 1915, in Harlan County, Kentucky.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what your father’s school history is?
MR. HECK: My father had a high school education from Bell County Schools.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother’s school education?
MR. HECK: My mother had a high school education and some college from, I believe, two years at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have sisters and brothers?
MR. HECK: I have one brother that’s deceased.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was his name?
MR. HECK: Richard Conley Heck.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember his birthdate?
MR. HECK: January 14th, 1939.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of work did your father do before coming to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: He was a meat cutter by trade. He worked in Bell County, Kentucky. He, like most people, came to Oak Ridge, saw an opportunity, and early on he set up a few canteen snack, snack bars along the [Oak Ridge] Turnpike. I don’t know exactly many – how many he had, but I’m going to say he had three or four…hot dogs and snacks and that kind of thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall in what area of the Turnpike those were?
MR. HECK: I really don’t. I’ve heard just people talk about it. That was before I was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the names of them?
MR. HECK: No, I don’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother? Did she work before coming to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: She worked in a department store in Harlan County, and I can’t remember the name of it. And she also worked at the A & P in Harlan County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did your family come to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: They came to Oak Ridge, they saw an opportunity, and they moved to Oak Ridge in 1943.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where your mother and father got married?
MR. HECK: They married in Bell County, Kentucky, and I’m not sure exactly what year they got married.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they live in Bell County?
MR. HECK: They lived in Bell County for a while, they lived in Norton, Virginia, for a while, and then after they left Norton, they came to Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know how the family got to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Means of transportation?
MR. HECK: I really don’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your school history in Oak Ridge? Where did you first attend a school?
MR. HECK: I started school in 1954, I believe, at Pine Valley School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what grade was that?
MR. HECK: I started kindergarten in ’54, and I was at Pine Valley until fourth grade. And then in fourth grade we moved – temporarily, we moved to West Outer Drive. And then in 1958, I believe I was in fifth grade, we moved to 185 North Purdue, and then I attended Woodland School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going to Pine Valley School?
MR. HECK: I remember – one thing I remember is – well, I had a – in kindergarten I do remember the Fire Department coming and giving us a program. And I do, I do remember also in kindergarten that we took a tour of Norris Creamery, Norris Dairy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that located?
MR. HECK: In Knoxville. Around Broad Acre. Near where Broad Acre is now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you think about the tour of the creamery?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember much about it; I just remember probably the biggest thing about it to me was the bus ride. That’s the thing I enjoyed most.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember some the classes you took in Pine Valley?
MR. HECK: No, not really. Just the basics. I remember I had some really good teachers as the schools in Oak Ridge in those days certainly were excellent, and I had some really good teachers. And I learned, I learned to, to read, and I’m still a good reader. That was, that was probably my strong suit was reading.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you take your lunch to school with you in those days? At Pine Valley?
MR. HECK: Mostly I ate lunch at school. I ate in the cafeteria.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk to school?
MR. HECK: No, I rode the bus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what do you recall about riding the bus to school?
MR. HECK: I do remember once I missed my stop, and I was lost – and I got lost. And I think I was in kindergarten, maybe first grade. This was at Pine Valley, and we lived on West Pasadena at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How far away was the house from the school?
MR. HECK: I want to think that – we lived at 124 West Pasadena, and I think when I finally got off the bus it was somewhere that was back on New York Avenue. And I remember knocking on a door and telling somebody that I was lost, and they got me – they arranged to get me home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you rode the bus, how did you indicate to the bus driver you wanted to get off at a particular place?
MR. HECK: We had a, we had a rope that we could ring a bell, and the drivers in those days – the same kids rode the bus just about every day, so the driver pretty much knew where to stop; and I think he just – he stopped, but I just didn’t get off.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This house on West Pasadena – what type of house was it?
MR. HECK: It was a three bedroom flattop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe what a flattop looks like.
MR. HECK: Cozy, as I recall. We started – the house where I was born was at 122 Aspen Lane. It was also a flattop, but it was two bedroom. And sometime on the mid-fifties, I want to think about 1953, ’52 or ’53, we moved to West Pasadena into a three bedroom. They were comfortable. They didn’t have underpinning. They were built on pillars. They were warm; they had a big coal stove in the middle of the living room, and I can remember my father getting up and shaking the ashes and stoking up the fire in the mornings. And it was always cold until he got the fire going, but it was toasty warm after that. We had coal delivered. We had the board sidewalks that they had in the early days; I do remember those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they deliver the coal?
MR. HECK: The coal bins, at least the ones I remember on Asp – or on West Pasadena, were near the road, and so the coal truck would just come by with a chute and just fill the bin.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You didn’t have to call them? They just came on a routine schedule?
MR. HECK: I don’t know about that, but I think they just came on a routine schedule.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the flattop material they were made out of?
MR. HECK: I believe they’re made of plywood. I think they’re made of plywood. They’re sturdy houses, very sturdy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how your mother washed her clothes when you lived in the flattop, or did she relate to you how she did?
MR. HECK: I remember seeing her wash clothes. She had a, she had a washing machine with a wringer on the top…electric, electric wringer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe how that process works.
MR. HECK: Well, it’s just a big tub. The washing machine is just a big tub, kind of like what we have now; but instead of having a spin cycle to dry the clothes, there’s a wringer on top. And you feed the clothes into the wringer, and it just wrings the water out of them. My grandmother had one, but hers was manual…had a crank; but the one that my mother had was a Maytag, and it had an electric wringer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then after she washed and wringed the clothes, what did she do with them?
MR. HECK: She took them outside and hung them out to dry like everybody else did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On a clothesline.
MR. HECK: On a clothesline.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what she attached the clothes to the clothesline with?
MR. HECK: Absolutely. Clothespins.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And describe what a clothespin looks like.
MR. HECK: It’s about, it’s about four inches long, and it’s just a little couple pieces of wood with a little spring in between, and it just – you just attach the clothes to the clothesline with the wooden clothespins.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the neighborhood full of a lot of kids where you lived at first?
MR. HECK: Yes, absolutely. It was a lot of kids where I grew up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the, the women in the neighborhood? Did they gather around clothes, the clothesline and gossip and talk?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember much about that. I do know we had, we had good, close neighbors that would come and visit; and we’d go visit them. I had – particularly on West Pasadena because that’s where I have the most of the early memories of Oak Ridge in the ’50s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have a telephone?
MR. HECK: We had a telephone. I, I looked in the library to – just to look and see some of phone books, and the earliest one that I could find was 1952, I believe; and we had a telephone then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, telephones were pretty scarce in those days.
MR. HECK: But we, we were fortunate to have a telephone.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you, do you recall what you used to do at recess when you went to Pine Valley in the early days?
MR. HECK: We played touch football. We picked on the girls. We – generally, we’d go down to the creek, which we weren’t supposed to do, and we’d always get in trouble for that and just generally do what kids do…swing on the swing set.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any health nurses coming to the school and, and giving shots during those years?
MR. HECK: I do. I don’t have – I, I vaguely do remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe your clothes. What did they look like when you went to school in, at Pine Valley?
MR. HECK: I think just basic clothes. I remember my mother bought a lot of clothes for my brother and I from Montgomery Ward, and she ordered them from catalog; and that’s where most of my clothes came from early on. And then later on when they built the shopping center at, at Downtown, they had a J. C. Penney store, and that was her favorite store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, you mentioned your father had a little vending business that sold hotdogs or so-forth. Is – was that his first job he had when he came to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: I believe so. I believe so. Now, he, he did that for a few years, and then he was a meat cutter. He worked at Midtown Market. He was a meat cutter at Midtown Market.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, where was Midtown Market located?
MR. HECK: About where the Civic Center is now…just in that area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that his only job he had the whole time he’s here?
MR. HECK: That was – no, he had one other job. He was also a meat cutter at, on the east end. He – there was a store on the east end that he was a meat cutter – Woodson. Woodson had a market here in those days, and he was a meat cutter there for a while.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was on the other side of the Elza Underpass.
MR. HECK: Elza Gate. Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Elza Gate, wasn’t it?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mom? Did she work while she lived in Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: She did. She worked – early on she worked at the Music Box. And I’m not exactly sure what location; I know they had different locations. The one I remember is on the corner there at Broadway, and I think that’s where she worked. And she may have worked in the previous location there, also.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was her job duties?
MR. HECK: She worked – I, I’m, I’m not exactly sure. I do remember going and, and visiting her at work. My father would take me to visit with her, and she was always sitting up front.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back at the flattop on West Pasadena…was your brother alive or born then, and did he live in that house with you?
MR. HECK: He did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you both share a room?
MR. HECK: No, we each had a bedroom. We had three bedrooms, so everybody had a, had a room.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall in that flattop a little escape door or something that you could get out of the flattop in case the front entrance was blocked?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember that. I don’t – if that’s something we had, I don’t remember it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what type windows was in the flattop?
MR. HECK: As I recall, they were small, and they were up high, and they were wooden, wooden windows. And, you know, we’d – of course, we didn’t have air conditioning in those days, but we had fans; and we seemed to do just fine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did your mother do her grocery shopping when you lived in that house?
MR. HECK: A & P.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was it was located?
MR. HECK: Before the shopping center, before 1955, the A & P, I believe, was located in Jackson Square. And that’s where she shopped, and she was a loyal A & P shopper.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did she like the A & P store?
MR. HECK: She liked those A & P brands, I remember. She thought they were good buys, and that’s where she shopped. And she would – I remember how excited she was about the new store, because that new store was really marvelous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, your daddy was a meat cutter in another store, little shopping center; and she’d go to the A & P. How did that work out?
MR. HECK: Oh, that worked out fine. You know, he, he did – he took of the meat cutting and bringing the cuts of meat home from where he worked, but the rest of the shopping was done at A & P.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what, what types food your mother fixed when you were growing up there in the flattop?
MR. HECK: Oh, yeah. She, she, she would always – I had breakfast every morning. We didn’t, you know – we didn’t – we had a real breakfast, a full – even on school days. Eggs and bacon –
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is a “real” breakfast?
MR. HECK: Eggs and bacon or sausage and biscuits. I had that every day. And she fixed – one of my favorite dishes that she fixed was – she called it goulash. And it was just rice and ground beef and chili sauce and some other things, and it was just delicious. I can still taste it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your mother a good cook?
MR. HECK: She’s a very good cook.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is the second house you mentioned that you moved into located?
MR. HECK: The first – our –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Or the third – it would be the third house, I guess.
MR. HECK: That was – that, that, that would have been about 1958, and we moved to 185 North Purdue. That’s in a duplex across from the brick apartments on North Purdue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, you attended Pine Valley through the fourth grade. Is that right?
MR. HECK: I believe so, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then you guys moved to the point where you attended Woodland School from –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Five through what grade?
MR. HECK: Fifth and sixth, and then that’s where I – that’s where I lived in, though high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was different in the residence in Woodland and the one you lived in in West Pasadena?
MR. HECK: Well, it was – you know, having that – being able to have that duplex – it was a, it was a step up, for us, you know. And that was the first house that we bought. That was the first house that my parents owned.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe the inside of the duplex.
MR. HECK: We lived in the back end of the duplex, which was by choice. That’s where my parents wanted to be. We didn’t, we didn’t – they didn’t want to be in the front. The front door would face the back yard, so we’d – we would come in the kitchen door. And the kitchen door – you’d walk in the kitchen door, and there’d be a little – there was a little dining table there, just for a couple of people. And then you’d go through the kitchen into a dining area where we had a dining room table. And then off to the right would be the living room. And then down the hall, it was three bedrooms, down the hall there was two bedrooms on the left and then a bedroom at the end of the hall and then a bathroom on the right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, this was a block structure?
MR. HECK: Yes, a block duplex.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type heat did that duplex have?
MR. HECK: We had electric heat. I remember electric stack heaters, because those homes had – in the early days they had coal heat; and by the time that we bought that, that my parents bought that, house in 1958, the coal bins were gone, and I’m not sure if there was any coal available after that. So, a lot of people put, I think, oil furnaces in. But initially we had electric stack heaters; and that was expensive, I believe, so my parents invested in a, in a furnace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the family have an automobile when they came to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: I believe so. My father had a – I’ve seen pictures of my father’s car; and it was an old Chrysler, I remember, from the ’30s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then what was the next automobile he had?
MR. HECK: The next automobile that I remember my father having was a Frazer. He had a couple of those. He really liked those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that a Kaiser-Frazer?
MR. HECK: Kaiser-Frazer. It was a – built by the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation. And there was – a Kaiser was a – a Frazer was kind of a, a deluxe Kaiser, I guess you’d say.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that the same company that made refrigerators, too—Kaiser or, or Frazer or something of that nature?
MR. HECK: I know Nash-Kelvinator made –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah.
MR. HECK: Made refrigerators.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s what I’m thinking of.
MR. HECK: I’m not – I’m, I’m not sure about Kaiser, but it was – later became Kaiser Jeep Corporation.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now what do you remember about how your father got back and forth to work?
MR. HECK: He, he – we had one car, like most people had in those days, and he drove the car to work. And I don’t know, I guess my mother did her shopping or where she needed to go. But, of course, we had bus lines back in those days, so she was able to ride a bus and get around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about attending Woodland School? How was Woodland School different than Pine Valley School?
MR. HECK: It was, it was a whole lot of the – it was a lot the same. I, I remember when I got to Woodland School, it seemed like that the, that the, the teachers were really good; and the, the students that, that I met, that I was in class with, I got close to really quick, because in those days there were a lot of, of young people, a lot of children in, in Woodland. And so the school was bigger. There were more students there. And it was just a really good place to grow up; I really enjoyed Woodland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the school was made out of, what kind of material that school was made out of?
MR. HECK: The, the Woodland School was a brick, brick structure, so it seemed to be a little more permanent than some of the schools like Pine Valley that were built earlier.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the teachers seem like young ladies and men at that time?
MR. HECK: Not to me they didn’t. Though looking back on it, you know, they were, they were, they were relatively young.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember some of the classes you took at Woodland?
MR. HECK: Just the basic courses, you know, that, that you take in middle – I do remember I had trouble with – I had a teacher named Ms. Barkley, and she was a wonderful lady. And she was so patient with me. I had trouble in diagramming sentences; that gave me a fit. And she sat down with me and spent extra time with me, and she really put a lot into that just, just because she wanted to help me. And I’ll never, I’ll never forget that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember your other teachers’ names?
MR. HECK: Let’s see. I had a Mrs., Mrs. Dessiker at, at, at Woodland School, I had Ms. Barkley, and in sixth grade I had Ms. Dewer; and she was an older lady. And she had a, a, a reputation for being tough, but she was really a sweet, a sweet lady. And she was the safety patrol – she was head of the safety patrol at Woodland school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, tell me what safety patrol is.
MR. HECK: Well, the students that were – I don’t remember if we were selected or if we, if we volunteered for that duty, but safety patrol’s duty was to stay, stand at, at entrances, at, at entrances to the building and also at crosswalks to keep – to make sure everybody was safe crossing the street or entering the building or exiting the building. And it was just students that, that did that. You had to get up a little early; and you had to stay a little late, so there was a little bit of responsibility to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You were a safety patrol person?
MR. HECK: I was, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How were you – what made you stand out from the other students when you were a safety patrol?
MR. HECK: We wore a – as I recall we had a badge, and it seems like we wore a vest or something that, where the badge was attached so that they could see that we were safety patrol. And some of the, some of the kids, you know, liked to rib us a little bit about it, but that didn’t bother me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you feel like you had a lot of authority when you had that badge on and, and the belt?
MR. HECK: I didn’t feel so much like I had authority, but I felt like that I better do what Ms. Dewer told me, or I’d be in trouble ’cause she, she was pretty – she was stern. She, she wanted us to do our job; and I think it – she knew that it taught us responsibility.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any plays that the school put on you were involved in?
MR. HECK: I do remember a play in second or third grade, and I couldn’t tell you the name of it; and all I remember was that I was that I had stage fright. I was really nervous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Art and music in your early years at Pine Valley and at Woodland?
MR. HECK: We – I think Oak Ridge was, was ahead of a lot of school systems in those days. We had Art and music, which a lot of systems, I don’t think, did. And I had a – Art was, was probably my favorite subject; I really enjoyed Art. And I had an Art teacher named Mrs. Cole, and she also lived in Woodland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, in between school years during the summer, did you work any at paper routes or any other jobs?
MR. HECK: I did. I started working when I was fourteen, and I’m trying to think – I think I was at eighth grade. I started working for James Chesney in the summer. During the warm months he had the contract to do the mowing for all the James H. Moore apartments in Oak Ridge, and I worked for him. And his son was about my age, and we were good – we were big buddies.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where the James H. Moore apartments were located?
MR. HECK: They were located all over Oak Ridge. I think in those days – I think most, if not all, of the apartments in Oak Ridge were James H. Moore’s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any other jobs other than that one?
MR. HECK: In high school I worked for Mrs. Smith at the Cloth Shop. I came in and would clean up; I would wash windows. I worked for the lady Mrs. Muldoon at Merle Norman. I did her windows and cleaned up for her. And the barbershop – I did their windows. There was a laundry back in – this was the Northwestern Plaza, I believe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now this was located in the –
MR. HECK: The Downtown.
MR. HUNNICUTT: New Downtown –
MR. HECK: The new Downtown shopping center that was built in ’55.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, prior to that did you ever collect Coke bottles and sell them and lightning bugs and things of that nature?
MR. HECK: I had some friends that did that, but I never really got involved in that. But now Coke bottles – I did collect some Coke bottles. That was easy money.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me how that worked.
MR. HECK: Well, in those days, you know, the, the sodas all came in returnable bottles; we didn’t have anything that was throw-away, so it was a pretty good – I think it was a – at one point, it was like five cents for a returnable bottle, so we’d go – and didn’t matter how dirty they were. You could take them to the A & P or the Kroger store or wherever and get your, and get your money for them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any door-to-door salesmen when you lived in Woodland…maybe sold vacuums cleaners or insurance, things of that nature?
MR. HECK: Yes, sure do. We had a, we had a debit insurance man that would come and, and collect insurance. They would come door-to-door and collect the premiums on the insurance. We bought a – my mother wanted me to have a set of encyclopedias, and so we bought the World Books from a, from a salesman.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you ever remember someone coming around in the Woodland area with a little pony, and you could get your picture taken on that pony?
MR. HECK: I remember something vaguely about that. That was a long time ago. That may have been when we were living over on West Pasadena.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There seems to be someone that came around town trying to bend money some sort of fashion in those days.
MR. HECK: One thing I do remember since you mention that – on West Pasadena, you know, we, we had the ice cream trucks that would come around; but there was also a fellow back in those days that had a hand cart – that had a push cart that would come down our street. And he had this push cart with ice cream and popsicles and that kind of thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember rolling stores that went through the Woodland area –
MR. HECK: I sure do.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And other places?
MR. HECK: We called them peddlers. We sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe that for me.
MR. HECK: The fellas – these fellas that had these rolling stores would come, would come through – would come down a street, and they had fresh produce, they had eggs. And they would stop, and ladies would come out buy the, whatever they had. In fact, I worked with a fella in the Fire Department that did that on his off days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, how did they know where to stop? Did they just pick a place, or did they blow the horn, or how did people know they were coming?
MR. HECK: I think they had a bell. If I’m not mistaken they had a bell, and when the ladies heard that bell they’d come out. And it was just a good, a good, a good way to, to buy produce and things like that without having to go to the store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, did your mother, when you lived in Woodland, continue to shop at the A & P and not at the Woodland Shopping Center by any –
MR. HECK: I don’t ever remember her shopping at the Woodland Shopping Center. She shopped at A & P.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what type of stores was in the Woodland Shopping Center?
MR. HECK: I remember the IGA store in the Woodland Shopping Center and before that, I, I don’t if it was – if – how long it was an IGA store. I do remember at the Woodland Shopping Center there was a drug store with a soda fountain and a grocery store and what it was before it was IGA, I’m not sure. And there was also a service station. My next door neighbor owned that service station…Hubert Livesay.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever stop there at the drug store on the way in from school?
MR. HECK: Oh, I stopped at the drug store every day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do in the drug store?
MR. HECK: I’d get a Coke, I’d get a soda if I had a nickel, or I’d get a candy bar if I had a nickel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What does a soda consist of?
MR. HECK: Well, I say soda. Just a, a fountain Coke would be what you would buy, what you would consider a soda there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In those days did they serve their drinks in cups or glasses, or how did they do that?
MR. HECK: In glasses, as I recall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a bicycle when you were growing up?
MR. HECK: That was the thing that I did more than anything else was ride a bike. I loved riding a bike, and Oak Ridge was a great place for that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Remember the make of the bike you had?
MR. HECK: Western Flyer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: At that time you finished Woodland, and you moved on to the high school; and where – I mean to junior high. Where was junior high for you?
MR. HECK: Robertsville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that school located?
MR. HECK: The location is the same as it is today. It’s Illinois at Robertsville Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you get to Robertsville Junior High, as it was called in those days. What did you see a whole lot different than when you were at Woodland?
MR. HECK: It was a much bigger school. We had all different students that I didn’t know. You know, I’d been at Woodland School for all those years, and I met new people. And we had classes that we didn’t have before. It was a big step up for us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ride the bus back and forth to Robertsville?
MR. HECK: I did, and occasionally I’d ride my bike.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes that were, was different than in Woodland?
MR. HECK: I remember my father’s first cousin was Frank Heck, and he taught industrial arts…shop. We called it shop, and that’s something that I really enjoyed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do in shop?
MR. HECK: We made things. We made things out of wood. We made things out of – we had metal shop, and he, he was a really good, he was a really good teacher. He was very patient. And that was one of the classes that I really enjoyed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you get involved in any sports when you were in junior high school?
MR. HECK: I ran some track for a little while, and that’s it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was the track coach?
MR. HECK: Let’s see. It was Bob Stuhlmiller and Sam Wheeler and who else? I can’t remember; there was another one or two that was involved in that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your dress change when you went to junior high from Woodland?
MR. HECK: Not that I recall. Not, not that I recall. I don’t think –
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of shoes did you wear in those days? Were they lace-up or loafers or boots or what?
MR. HECK: Lace-up. Lace-up and then, and then tennis shoes. We were, we were able to wear tennis shoes some.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, today we call certain shoes that we wear “tennis shoes,” but what did tennis shoes look like in your day?
MR. HECK: They were more traditional, if you know – if you can picture what a traditional tennis shoe looks like, they were nothing like what you see today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: High-tops?
MR. HECK: High-tops. Keds was a big brand, and so that’s, that, that’s what I think of when I think of tennis shoes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go to Jackson Square to do much shopping, or did you attend any movies in Jackson Square?
MR. HECK: I remember going to movies at the Ridge Theater, but most of the movies I went to, it seems like, were at the Grove.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what type of movies did you like to go see?
MR. HECK: On Saturday they had a matinee at the Grove Theater, and they always, they almost always had a horror movie, and that’s what I liked to go see.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, the Grove Theater was located where?
MR. HECK: In Grove Center where the – there’s a church there now. I can’t recall the name of the church.
MR. HUNNICUTT: High Places.
MR. HECK: High Places Church, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much it cost to get in the movie in those days?
MR. HECK: I want to think it was probably $0.35. Something like that. Maybe $0.25 for a student. It wasn’t much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ride your bicycle to the movies?
MR. HECK: I would ride my bicycle to the movie, or my parents would take me and drop me off and come and get me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How ’bout the skating rink in Jefferson? Did you visit that much?
MR. HECK: I did. I went to the skating rink a time or two. I was never really very good at skating, so I did – but I did, I did go there a time or two.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about during the summer at the swimming pool?
MR. HECK: I did go to the swimming pool a good bit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the swimming pool?
MR. HECK: I just remember that the – I remember the snacks were good, and it was just a good place to go and stay – you know, it was just a good place to visit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the water cold?
MR. HECK: Oh, gosh! The water was – it was spring fed, and the water was freezing cold. But in those days it didn’t bother me. I guess when you’re a kid it just doesn’t bother – didn’t matter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about bowling? Did you attend any bowling alleys?
MR. HECK: I did. I bowled some because the bowling alley was in my neighborhood. It was Downtown…Ark Lanes. That was the new bowling alley; it was built probably late ’50s. And so I did bowl some there, and I remember when I was in scouts, they used to take us bowling some.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, were you a cub scout?
MR. HECK: I was a cub scout.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you remember what pack you belonged to?
MR. HECK: I remember – Den 3 is all I remember. And Mrs. Armstrong lived on West – on Northwestern Avenue; and she was my den mother, and she was a sweetheart. She had a son my age.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the cub scouts. What did you learn from the cub scouts?
MR. HECK: Well, we, we learned – we did all kinds of things. The, the, the people that were involved in the cub scouts – the leaders in the cub scouts were big into camping, and we started going camping. And I really learned from that, and I enjoyed that part of it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And did you –
MR. HECK: Would take us camping.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the cub scouts meet at this lady’s house every –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So often.
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what would you do when you met at her house?
MR. HECK: We would, we would try to get merit – we would go through a book and try to get merit badges, and it was, it was just a learning experience. It was teaching – a teaching experience.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did the cub scouts all meet when they had their full-size meeting?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember exactly where we would meet in those days, other than the scout – the den mother’s home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go into boy scouts?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t go into boy scout.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did – what type of games did you and your friends in the neighborhood play before, before you got to Robertsville or even after you got to Robertsville? What, what type of games did you guys and gals play?
MR. HECK: We – I was really close to Woodland school (just a short walk) so we had access to all those playgrounds, and we – a big thing for us was in the summertime was softball. We played softball, and we played dodge ball; we played touch football. In fact, even in the back yards we’d get together and have touch football games. That was a big thing for us back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the playground activities at each school during the summertime that the city had?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember much about that. I didn’t get involved in that much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you get involved in any of Shep Lauter’s baseball in the summer time?
MR. HECK: I did, I did one year. I went to – I got involved in that one year for – with Shep Lauter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where you would go to play ball?
MR. HECK: It seems like to me that we maybe would go to the Boys Club. I, I’m not sure. I believe that’s right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of people were in the neighborhoods? I, I know there was all types of people that came from all over the United States to come to Oak Ridge. What type of people was in your neighborhood in Woodland?
MR. HECK: Well, it was kind of a unique neighborhood because there were all kinds of people. I remember on my street – and in those days you knew everybody. Everybody knew everybody. And there was Joe Falkner; he was a Buick dealer. He lived on my street. Hubert Livesay, was the – who later owned Modern Tire, was on my street. A lot of business people. And then across the street from me from where we lived in the duplex were the Woodland Apartments, and in those apartments in those days were a lot of young professionals. So, there were a lot of nice cars over there, I remember, and I was always a car, car lover, you know, when I was a kid growing up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go across to the Skyway Drive-In Theater?
MR. HECK: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the Skyway Drive-In Theater. And where was it located?
MR. HECK: The Skyway was, I believe, the last drive-in in Oak Ridge. It was located where the, I believe, the Super China Buffet, I think that’s what that’s called, is located now. It was across from the old Fire Station No. 3, and that was one of the greatest activities. In the evenings we would sit out in front of the fire station and the traffic going by and we’d – people going into the, to the Skyway Drive-In, you know. And that was a – it was a – I know – I do remember that it was extremely clean, and the food was good. They had a great snack bar, and it was a really drive-in theater.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, did – when you drove up, did you pay one price whether you had two people or a car load in the, in the car?
MR. HECK: Everybody had to pay. But in those days, I think that – I’ve heard of some people maybe sneaking in the back or maybe getting into the trunk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In the trunk of the car and going in?
MR. HECK: Yeah, yeah. We tried –
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then getting out when you got in there?
MR. HECK: Yeah, we tried that once. It didn’t work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It didn’t –
MR. HECK: It didn’t work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What happened?
MR. HECK: Mr. Pemberton was the – ran the, ran the drive-in, and so I guess he just saw us get out and get in the car. This was when I was in high school, so Mr. Pemberton walked over to the car; and he said, “Well, it looks like you’ve gained a few.” He said, “You’ve got a choice. You can leave, or you can pay.” And so we stayed, and we paid. But we didn’t fool him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when you drove in to the drive-in, tell me how did you hear the, the, the voice over the – over what? I mean, how did you know what they were saying?
MR. HECK: Well, the drive-in, drive-ins had a, had a, a little, a little hump that you pulled up on so that your car would sit so that you could see the screen, and you would sit next to a pole. And on the pole was a speaker, and you just take a speaker and had a volume control and just – you hang the speaker on your window, and it was real important to remember to take the speaker off the window and hang it back on the post before you left, because you’d take your window out if you didn’t do that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember them having bingo at – during – between the movies at the drive-in?
MR. HECK: They sure did. I’d forgotten about that, but they sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when the movie was over, did they make an announcement about reminding you to put that speaker on the pole?
MR. HECK: I think they did. I think they did, and if you didn’t get in too big a hurry and leave before they could – you know, it was a good reminder, but –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you were in high school, was that a dating place?
MR. HECK: It was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you sit on the front row?
MR. HECK: I would sit on the front row or somewhere near the front row.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever attend the Museum of – the Atomic Museum down at Jefferson when it was down there?
MR. HECK: I sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that?
MR. HECK: The static electricity generating – whatever they call that. I do remember that. And I also remember the, the dimes, the irradiated dimes. I remember those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get one of those?
MR. HECK: As I recall, you gave them a dime, and they put some kind of a source on it and put it in a little case and gave it back to you. And it had a little – had a label on it that told you what it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you like to go to the museum?
MR. HECK: I did. I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit it fairly often?
MR. HECK: Once in a while, I would go to the museum. It was interesting.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay to get in?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember. I don’t remember if you did or didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the other shopping center down at Jefferson? Did, did you ever visit down there very much?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t know much about that. I – you know, we were pretty mobile on – you know, kids in those days could get on their bikes and go all over town, but I didn’t get that far down. I spent a lot of time in the shopping center. That was a good place to go.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The – what other special events or places do you remember?
MR. HECK: In Oak Ridge?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. HECK: In those days?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. HECK: One thing that I remember that I thought was really neat is – I said I’m – I enjoy working on cars, and in the late ’50s, I believe it was ’59, maybe 1960, there was an auto show in the Downtown shopping center parking lot. And it was, it was all the dealers in Oak Ridge, and some dealers in Knoxville brought cars; it was there for several days. And also, they used to have rallies. They had sports car rallies. They’d set up cones, and they’d have rallies in the parking lot.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you left Robertsville Junior High and attended the high school, what grades was in the high school at that time?
MR. HECK: That would – in – at that time it was ten, ten through twelve.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what did you see different when you left junior high and went to the high school?
MR. HECK: Well, it was just a different world. You know, it was just a part of growing up, I guess. I really had a little trouble taking to it at first, because I, I enjoyed junior high. I enjoyed it; and it was, it was, it was a little bit of a shock, so it was a little bit of adjustment for me there. But, but I got, I got used to it; and I did fine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, all the time that you were in school up to the high school, did you have physical education classes?
MR. HECK: Yes. Every year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And when you went to Robertsville Junior High and you took gym, did you have to have a certain type of uniform or shorts or shirt to wear?
MR. HECK: As I recall, we had to have tennis shoes, white, white socks, tennis shoes, and shorts, white shorts, and a t-shirt.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what kind of activities did you do in gym?
MR. HECK: A little of everything…a little rope climbing, dodge ball, gymnastics; just a little bit of everything…basketball.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a new thing for you to have to take a shower after you had gym class, or did you have to do that in junior high?
MR. HECK: We did, we did. And it was, it was, it was kind of odd, but it was just part of growing up, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, now we’re in high school. What’s some of the classes you took in high school?
MR. HECK: I, I took all the required courses…algebra. And I guess my biggest – I enjoyed the science classes. In junior high, as well, I enjoyed the science classes; it was my favorite.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what did you do in the science classes? Did you have –
MR. HECK: We had some that had labs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Labs? And what happens in a science lab?
MR. HECK: You do experiments, and you do – we did, we did all kinds of things. We actually did some dissecting of, of frogs and all that kind of thing, and I kind of enjoyed that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who your teacher was?
MR. HECK: In junior high my science teacher for two years was John Price, and I can’t remember my high school teacher’s name in science.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now Mrs. Perry was a high school teacher. Did you – biology – did you ever have her?
MR. HECK: No, I don’t think – I remember Ms. Perry, but I don’t think she taught – she was my teacher.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a locker to put your books and things in when you were in, even in junior high?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And when you were in high school, as well?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you remember what time school started and got out in high school?
MR. HECK: I do remember some in the winter time it being dark. I would be in class; it would still be dark, so it must have been pretty early. I guess classes started at 8:00 and ran until 3:00 or so.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the schools warm? All the schools you attended, were they warm?
MR. HECK: I didn’t remember being cold or being uncomfortable.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there air conditioning in the schools?
MR. HECK: No, no air conditioning, but, but it was warm.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you just opened the windows?
MR. HECK: Opened the windows.
MR. HUNNICUTT: [inaudible 00:46:21] cooling?
MR. HECK: Natural ventilation.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports in high school?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who some of the teachers, other teachers were in the high school at that time?
MR. HECK: Mr. – I’m trying to think of the teacher’s name that I liked so well. He, he – I can’t think of his name right now. He passed away young. I talked to his parents recently, and they said that he, he, he died in a car crash; and I remember it was really upsetting to me because I really liked him. Bogel. Mr. Bogel. Bob Bogel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you start dating when you were in high school?
MR. HECK: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your parents strict on you about dating?
MR. HECK: They were strict on me about everything. [laughter]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think that was good or bad?
MR. HECK: I think it was good. Absolutely.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, where did – what places did you go to on dates?
MR. HECK: We’d go to the drive-in. The big thing in those days was to take your date to Shoney’s and sit at the curb. And then sometimes you might go to another student’s house or something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about dances, school dances? Did you attend those?
MR. HECK: I did. We had dances at the center – where the Senior Center is now, the Wildcat Den, and also at the National Guard Armory. We used to have dances there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have an automobile at that time to use?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t have an – I used my, I used my parents’ car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a chore to, to be able to use the family car for dates?
MR. HECK: It wasn’t a problem. They were really generous with me about that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you’ve graduated from Oak Ridge High School in what year?
MR. HECK: 1966.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What happened then?
MR. HECK: I went to, I went to East Tennessee State University in fall of ’66.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And how long did you attend?
MR. HECK: I attended East Tennessee State University from fall of ’66 through, I believe, spring of ’72. I came, came back to Oak Ridge and went to work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what was your job when you came back?
MR. HECK: I worked for an insurance company for about two years, and I was an insurance adjustor; and then in 1975 I got a call from the fire chief in Oak Ridge. His name was Ralph MacMahan; his son was a friend of mine. And he asked me if I was interested in a job with the Fire Department, and it kind of took me aback just a little bit. I said, “Well, I don’t know; tell me about it.” And so he started telling me about it, and the thing that, I think, that caught my – that really caught my ear was that it was a job that you, that you worked every third day. And I thought, “That really sounds good.” So, I came and interviewed, and, and he hired me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you were about, what, 27 years old?
MR. HECK: Twenty seven.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what do you recall your first day on the Fire Department was like?
MR. HECK: Friend of mine, still a friend of mine, Mark Elmore was, was – he’d been there just a few months before me, so he kind of was learning the ropes, too; but he, he knew more than I did. And I remember they told me, “When we get an alarm, just climb on the back of the truck, and we’ll tell you what to do. Don’t do anything until you’re told what to do.” And that’s what I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you report to, to the first job?
MR. HECK: My first, my first assignment was at the old Fire Station No. 3. That was at 361 South Illinois Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you recall some of the stories the firemen told you about early Oak Ridge things that happened?
MR. HECK: Yes. It was – I was really fortunate to work with several of the, of the older fire fighters that had been there when they organized the Fire Department in 1943; and I, I worked with several of them. My first captain was Carl Ford. He was a fine man. He was an excellent, he was an excellent fire officer. He, he was promoted early; he was a captain by, I believe, 1946, so he, he got a promotion early. And he was, he was a very hard working fellow, disciplined; and he was intelligent. He had an eighth grade education, but he was really sharp. And he taught me a lot, not just about firefighting but about other things, too, so I was really lucky to have someone like him to mentor me back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of other stories do you recall that he told you?
MR. HECK: He’d tell me stories about the early days and how many runs they would have and how they would practice all day just – they – in the early days of the Fire Department – and it carries through to today. The Oak Ridge Fire Department is a very well trained fire department, and they really put a lot of emphasis on training and repetition. And my boss’s philosophy was you do it, and you do it over and over and over until it becomes second nature to you…your skills that you learned. And so they would do that, and they’d be worn out. They’d come in and try to get a little something to eat, and then they’d get a big fire somewhere. And so they’d just be completely worn out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the fire station you first went to work at – did they have a fire pole in that station?
MR. HECK: No, they didn’t. It was a brick building that was built, I believe, about 1950. But it did not – it was all on one level, so it didn’t have a fire pole.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what type of training did you have to have to become a fireman?
MR. HECK: Well, in those days you just had to have a clean record and a high school diploma. And they, they did, they did – they trained you on the job. And it was a pretty, pretty intensive training; for one year you pretty much trained all the time. And then, of course, your training continued after that, but the first year you just learned the basics.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the first fire you responded to…what was your job, and how did you react?
MR. HECK: The first time that I went to a fire I remember my captain (Captain Ford) – we – of course, we, we put on air packs – we were using air packs and our turnout gear, and I was dressed out. And those older guys, they didn’t do that. They didn’t wear air packs; they didn’t believe in it. And I do remember him standing to – at the door, and he handed me the hose line. And there was another fellow behind me, and he said – he pushed me in. And, fortunately, it wasn’t a really hot fire, but it was a – it was a little bit intimidating at first, but it just, just something you get used to over time. But –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was this a house fire?
MR. HECK: No, it was a commercial fire. It was in what we – what used to be the old Wender building near Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where the Oak Ridger used to be?
MR. HECK: I think there was a package store there then. Yeah, where the Oak – in that building, where the Oak Ridger used to be. On the west end of that building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s Tyrone Road.
MR. HECK: Tyrone Road. On the west end of that building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, before you got to the, to the fire, you put on your fire gear, which consisted of what?
MR. HECK: Your turnout gear is your bucker pants , your protective pants, and boots—rubber boots in those days, and some of us had leather boots; but in those days we all, we all had rubber boots. Then you have a, you have a coat, a Nomex coat, to protect you from the heat, you buttoned – you button all that up, and you have a hood that you, that you pull up over your head; and then you have a face piece for your air pack, and your hood covers your face. You don’t have any exposed skin. And then your helmet and your gloves and your air pack, and you take a tool with you so that you can make a forcible entry if you need to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of tool would that be?
MR. HECK: Most, most fire fighters would carry a Halligan bar, which is a kind of a multi-purpose tool or a fire ax, which is another tool that is particular to the fire service. Then the operator or whoever was driving the truck would set the pump up, get a water supply, and he would start laying out, laying out equipment that would be needed later on in the fire and have that all laid out for the fire fighters.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, back at the fire station before you had an alarm, did you have your boots and your pants all kind of rolled in a position so all you had to do was step in there and pull them up?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And your jackets were – all this equipment was real compact in the area where you could get to it quickly?
MR. HECK: Where you could step into your pants and pull your, pull your pants up and, well, your suspenders, put your coat on, your hood, your air pack, your helmet and gloves, and you’re ready to go.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, what were the helmets made out of?
MR. HECK: The, the latest helmets are composite or a composite material. Back in those days, the early days, they had leather helmets, and by the time I started in the fire service they’d gotten away from the leather helmets.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I’ll ask you a question that they all – that I’ve always heard. Why does firemen wear suspenders?
MR. HECK: Well, I’ve got the answer. Do you want me to tell you?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. HECK: To keep their pants up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Good answer. [laughter] Now, where did you ride on the fire truck going to the fire?
MR. HECK: Well, the, the old, the old trucks where I rode – by the time I came to work in 1975, we had jump seats, which were rear-facing seats behind – in the back of the cab. But you were out in the weather, but you were not – you were outside, but you were not in the weather exactly. You had – you know, you’d be out of the rain. But the newer trucks all have –
MR. HUNNICUTT: But it was an open atmosphere –
MR. HECK: It was a –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where you rode?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the driver and the co-driver, co-pilot in the front – were they enclosed inside?
MR. HECK: Yes, the captain and the operator were in an enclosed cabin. Now, we did have some trucks when I first started where you had to ride the tailboard, and that was kind of – there was a little bit of a trick to that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, what color were the fire trucks when you went to work for the Fire Department?
MR. HECK: Yellow. That started in 1968.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the reason for that?
MR. HECK: Visibility. Back in those days, you know, all the lights on the trucks were – you just had one beacon in the center of the cab, and you might have a couple lights on the back. And so the yellow trucks were more visible at night, and that was the reasoning behind that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, I notice today we have different sirens than we had back many years ago. What type of siren did you have when you worked with the Fire Department?
MR. HECK: When I came to work we had electronic sirens, and they’re just – they change – you can – well, a switch you can change the tone of the siren for different pitches and different tones. And that worked fine, but the old style mechanical sirens were much louder; and what they determined – what they figured – what they learned in the ’70s was that cars with air conditioners and people playing radios and the windows rolled up, these people weren’t hearing us. And so, starting 20-25 years ago, the fire service started going back to these old-style mechanical sirens that really make a lot of noise; but they still have electronic sirens, also.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, did that particular type of fire truck carry sections of fire hose?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what was the job of the person to – describe how they got the sections of fire hose off the truck.
MR. HECK: The hose was laid in the back of the truck in such a way so that it would come off – it would come off automatically if you – for instance, a firefighter that was riding on the back of the truck, if he was the hydrant man, the truck would stop and he would get a hydrant wrench, and he would take off just a couple flakes of that hose and put his knee on it, and he would motion the driver to go on. So then the truck – he would go to the hydrant and hook up to the hydrant, and the, the hose would lay out of the back of the truck. And when they got to the fire, then operator then would break the hose and connect it into the, into the pump intake.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what type of material the hose was made out of?
MR. HECK: The hose that we had had a nylon – was a rubber hose, rubber liner with a nylon cover on it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How were they connected?
MR. HECK: With couplings. One coupling of the male coupling had a thread, and then the female coupling was a – had a swivel, and then you would connect it by, by doing that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the hydrant man would get to the hydrant, he’d hook up the hose to the hydrant –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then the other end of the hose was hooked up where?
MR. HECK: The – when the truck stopped, when the truck stopped, then the operator of the truck would get out, and he would break the, the connection. He would break the hose, and he would put the hose into the, the, the pump intake on the, on the pump. Then the, the hydrant man would be at the hydrant, and he would signal for the hydrant man to turn the water on. Now, a lot of times the, the captain would put a hose clamp on the hose, so that meant he could – that the hydrant man could go ahead and turn the hydrant on, turn the water on, any time, and then when the operator was ready for the water, then he could release the hose clamp. That was an ideal way to do it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the hose is hooked to the side of the fire truck, and there is a pump in the fire truck, and –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That supplies the water to the, to the fire?
MR. HECK: To the hose line and to the fire fighters. Then, then the hydrant man would come back to the truck, and he would team with the other fire fighter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many years did you work with the Fire Department?
MR. HECK: Thirty four.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did – do you think the Fire Department today is trained better than it was when you worked with them?
MR. HECK: Yes, I do. They do more. We learned the basics, and we were really good at what we did; but these guys today – they do so much more than we did. And they, they have to do the basics and the firefighting and so much more. They’re so much more involved in, in the emergency medical work than we were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were living at – growing up in Oak Ridge, did you feel safe in the city?
MR. HECK: Absolutely. It was a safe place to live.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you meet your future – your wife, your future wife?
MR. HECK: I met her in – at – I actually met her at the fire station. She did some work for us, and we married in 1996.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what’s her name, and where did you get married?
MR. HECK: We married – we got – her name is Carol Parchman. She’s from Clarksville, Tennessee. We married in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have children?
MR. HECK: I have two grown children.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They went through the Oak Ridge school system?
MR. HECK: They went through the Oak Ridge school system with the exception of my son. He went to Gatlinburg Pitman High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you feel the Oak Ridge school system was an above average school system –
MR. HECK: Absolutely.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Or average?
MR. HECK: Absolutely. Above average.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to talk about at this time?
MR. HECK: I want to tell you one funny story, and then since we’re talking about fire trucks and fire hose – Back in the old days, this is just a story that I heard, and one of the old captains told me this, when the trucks stopped, that was a signal for the hydrant man who was on the back of the truck to get off and catch the hydrant. Well, they were on their way to a fire, and for some reason this operator stopped. I don’t know if there was a car that crossed in front of him or something, but, anyway, they weren’t anywhere near the fire. Well, the hydrant man gets off like he always does, and he catches the hydrant, and the truck goes on. And by the time – and when they got to the fire, they didn’t have any hose. [laughter] But fortunately, you know, they’re not the only ones that were responding; other trucks came in and took care of everything, but this is one of those things that can happen, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, to sum up growing in Oak Ridge, what would you say your experience has been?
MR. HECK: It’s, it’s been a great place to live. I live here now, because I choose to live here. And it was a great place to grow up; it was a great place to raise a family, and I, I’ve really enjoyed my time in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, David, it’s been my pleasure to interview you; and I know that your oral history will be a treasure to someone in the future to learn about how life was in Oak Ridge and –
MR. HECK: So –
MR. HUNNICUTT: I thank you very much for your time.
MR. HECK: Thank you.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Heck’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]

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ORAL HISTORY OF DAVID HECK
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
November 19, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is November the 19th, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the studio of BBB Communications, LLC, 170 Robertsville Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to take an oral history from Mr. David Heck about living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. David, please state your full name, date of birth, and place of birth.
MR. HECK: My name is David Blair Heck. I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, August 28th, 1948.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was your father’s name, place of birth, and date?
MR. HECK: My father’s name was Gillas C. – Gillas Conley Heck. He was born, I believe, June 11, 1911, in Bell County, Kentucky.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mother’s maiden name, place of birth, and date?
MR. HECK: My mother was Mabel Lucinda Creech. She was born February 14th, 1915, in Harlan County, Kentucky.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what your father’s school history is?
MR. HECK: My father had a high school education from Bell County Schools.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother’s school education?
MR. HECK: My mother had a high school education and some college from, I believe, two years at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have sisters and brothers?
MR. HECK: I have one brother that’s deceased.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was his name?
MR. HECK: Richard Conley Heck.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember his birthdate?
MR. HECK: January 14th, 1939.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of work did your father do before coming to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: He was a meat cutter by trade. He worked in Bell County, Kentucky. He, like most people, came to Oak Ridge, saw an opportunity, and early on he set up a few canteen snack, snack bars along the [Oak Ridge] Turnpike. I don’t know exactly many – how many he had, but I’m going to say he had three or four…hot dogs and snacks and that kind of thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall in what area of the Turnpike those were?
MR. HECK: I really don’t. I’ve heard just people talk about it. That was before I was born.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the names of them?
MR. HECK: No, I don’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother? Did she work before coming to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: She worked in a department store in Harlan County, and I can’t remember the name of it. And she also worked at the A & P in Harlan County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did your family come to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: They came to Oak Ridge, they saw an opportunity, and they moved to Oak Ridge in 1943.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where your mother and father got married?
MR. HECK: They married in Bell County, Kentucky, and I’m not sure exactly what year they got married.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they live in Bell County?
MR. HECK: They lived in Bell County for a while, they lived in Norton, Virginia, for a while, and then after they left Norton, they came to Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know how the family got to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Means of transportation?
MR. HECK: I really don’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your school history in Oak Ridge? Where did you first attend a school?
MR. HECK: I started school in 1954, I believe, at Pine Valley School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what grade was that?
MR. HECK: I started kindergarten in ’54, and I was at Pine Valley until fourth grade. And then in fourth grade we moved – temporarily, we moved to West Outer Drive. And then in 1958, I believe I was in fifth grade, we moved to 185 North Purdue, and then I attended Woodland School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about going to Pine Valley School?
MR. HECK: I remember – one thing I remember is – well, I had a – in kindergarten I do remember the Fire Department coming and giving us a program. And I do, I do remember also in kindergarten that we took a tour of Norris Creamery, Norris Dairy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that located?
MR. HECK: In Knoxville. Around Broad Acre. Near where Broad Acre is now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you think about the tour of the creamery?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember much about it; I just remember probably the biggest thing about it to me was the bus ride. That’s the thing I enjoyed most.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember some the classes you took in Pine Valley?
MR. HECK: No, not really. Just the basics. I remember I had some really good teachers as the schools in Oak Ridge in those days certainly were excellent, and I had some really good teachers. And I learned, I learned to, to read, and I’m still a good reader. That was, that was probably my strong suit was reading.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you take your lunch to school with you in those days? At Pine Valley?
MR. HECK: Mostly I ate lunch at school. I ate in the cafeteria.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you walk to school?
MR. HECK: No, I rode the bus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what do you recall about riding the bus to school?
MR. HECK: I do remember once I missed my stop, and I was lost – and I got lost. And I think I was in kindergarten, maybe first grade. This was at Pine Valley, and we lived on West Pasadena at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How far away was the house from the school?
MR. HECK: I want to think that – we lived at 124 West Pasadena, and I think when I finally got off the bus it was somewhere that was back on New York Avenue. And I remember knocking on a door and telling somebody that I was lost, and they got me – they arranged to get me home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you rode the bus, how did you indicate to the bus driver you wanted to get off at a particular place?
MR. HECK: We had a, we had a rope that we could ring a bell, and the drivers in those days – the same kids rode the bus just about every day, so the driver pretty much knew where to stop; and I think he just – he stopped, but I just didn’t get off.
MR. HUNNICUTT: This house on West Pasadena – what type of house was it?
MR. HECK: It was a three bedroom flattop.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe what a flattop looks like.
MR. HECK: Cozy, as I recall. We started – the house where I was born was at 122 Aspen Lane. It was also a flattop, but it was two bedroom. And sometime on the mid-fifties, I want to think about 1953, ’52 or ’53, we moved to West Pasadena into a three bedroom. They were comfortable. They didn’t have underpinning. They were built on pillars. They were warm; they had a big coal stove in the middle of the living room, and I can remember my father getting up and shaking the ashes and stoking up the fire in the mornings. And it was always cold until he got the fire going, but it was toasty warm after that. We had coal delivered. We had the board sidewalks that they had in the early days; I do remember those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they deliver the coal?
MR. HECK: The coal bins, at least the ones I remember on Asp – or on West Pasadena, were near the road, and so the coal truck would just come by with a chute and just fill the bin.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You didn’t have to call them? They just came on a routine schedule?
MR. HECK: I don’t know about that, but I think they just came on a routine schedule.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the flattop material they were made out of?
MR. HECK: I believe they’re made of plywood. I think they’re made of plywood. They’re sturdy houses, very sturdy.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how your mother washed her clothes when you lived in the flattop, or did she relate to you how she did?
MR. HECK: I remember seeing her wash clothes. She had a, she had a washing machine with a wringer on the top…electric, electric wringer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe how that process works.
MR. HECK: Well, it’s just a big tub. The washing machine is just a big tub, kind of like what we have now; but instead of having a spin cycle to dry the clothes, there’s a wringer on top. And you feed the clothes into the wringer, and it just wrings the water out of them. My grandmother had one, but hers was manual…had a crank; but the one that my mother had was a Maytag, and it had an electric wringer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then after she washed and wringed the clothes, what did she do with them?
MR. HECK: She took them outside and hung them out to dry like everybody else did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On a clothesline.
MR. HECK: On a clothesline.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what she attached the clothes to the clothesline with?
MR. HECK: Absolutely. Clothespins.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And describe what a clothespin looks like.
MR. HECK: It’s about, it’s about four inches long, and it’s just a little couple pieces of wood with a little spring in between, and it just – you just attach the clothes to the clothesline with the wooden clothespins.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the neighborhood full of a lot of kids where you lived at first?
MR. HECK: Yes, absolutely. It was a lot of kids where I grew up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the, the women in the neighborhood? Did they gather around clothes, the clothesline and gossip and talk?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember much about that. I do know we had, we had good, close neighbors that would come and visit; and we’d go visit them. I had – particularly on West Pasadena because that’s where I have the most of the early memories of Oak Ridge in the ’50s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your family have a telephone?
MR. HECK: We had a telephone. I, I looked in the library to – just to look and see some of phone books, and the earliest one that I could find was 1952, I believe; and we had a telephone then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, telephones were pretty scarce in those days.
MR. HECK: But we, we were fortunate to have a telephone.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you, do you recall what you used to do at recess when you went to Pine Valley in the early days?
MR. HECK: We played touch football. We picked on the girls. We – generally, we’d go down to the creek, which we weren’t supposed to do, and we’d always get in trouble for that and just generally do what kids do…swing on the swing set.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any health nurses coming to the school and, and giving shots during those years?
MR. HECK: I do. I don’t have – I, I vaguely do remember that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe your clothes. What did they look like when you went to school in, at Pine Valley?
MR. HECK: I think just basic clothes. I remember my mother bought a lot of clothes for my brother and I from Montgomery Ward, and she ordered them from catalog; and that’s where most of my clothes came from early on. And then later on when they built the shopping center at, at Downtown, they had a J. C. Penney store, and that was her favorite store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, you mentioned your father had a little vending business that sold hotdogs or so-forth. Is – was that his first job he had when he came to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: I believe so. I believe so. Now, he, he did that for a few years, and then he was a meat cutter. He worked at Midtown Market. He was a meat cutter at Midtown Market.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, where was Midtown Market located?
MR. HECK: About where the Civic Center is now…just in that area.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that his only job he had the whole time he’s here?
MR. HECK: That was – no, he had one other job. He was also a meat cutter at, on the east end. He – there was a store on the east end that he was a meat cutter – Woodson. Woodson had a market here in those days, and he was a meat cutter there for a while.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was on the other side of the Elza Underpass.
MR. HECK: Elza Gate. Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Elza Gate, wasn’t it?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mom? Did she work while she lived in Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: She did. She worked – early on she worked at the Music Box. And I’m not exactly sure what location; I know they had different locations. The one I remember is on the corner there at Broadway, and I think that’s where she worked. And she may have worked in the previous location there, also.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was her job duties?
MR. HECK: She worked – I, I’m, I’m not exactly sure. I do remember going and, and visiting her at work. My father would take me to visit with her, and she was always sitting up front.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back at the flattop on West Pasadena…was your brother alive or born then, and did he live in that house with you?
MR. HECK: He did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you both share a room?
MR. HECK: No, we each had a bedroom. We had three bedrooms, so everybody had a, had a room.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall in that flattop a little escape door or something that you could get out of the flattop in case the front entrance was blocked?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember that. I don’t – if that’s something we had, I don’t remember it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what type windows was in the flattop?
MR. HECK: As I recall, they were small, and they were up high, and they were wooden, wooden windows. And, you know, we’d – of course, we didn’t have air conditioning in those days, but we had fans; and we seemed to do just fine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did your mother do her grocery shopping when you lived in that house?
MR. HECK: A & P.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was it was located?
MR. HECK: Before the shopping center, before 1955, the A & P, I believe, was located in Jackson Square. And that’s where she shopped, and she was a loyal A & P shopper.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Why did she like the A & P store?
MR. HECK: She liked those A & P brands, I remember. She thought they were good buys, and that’s where she shopped. And she would – I remember how excited she was about the new store, because that new store was really marvelous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, your daddy was a meat cutter in another store, little shopping center; and she’d go to the A & P. How did that work out?
MR. HECK: Oh, that worked out fine. You know, he, he did – he took of the meat cutting and bringing the cuts of meat home from where he worked, but the rest of the shopping was done at A & P.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what, what types food your mother fixed when you were growing up there in the flattop?
MR. HECK: Oh, yeah. She, she, she would always – I had breakfast every morning. We didn’t, you know – we didn’t – we had a real breakfast, a full – even on school days. Eggs and bacon –
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is a “real” breakfast?
MR. HECK: Eggs and bacon or sausage and biscuits. I had that every day. And she fixed – one of my favorite dishes that she fixed was – she called it goulash. And it was just rice and ground beef and chili sauce and some other things, and it was just delicious. I can still taste it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your mother a good cook?
MR. HECK: She’s a very good cook.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where is the second house you mentioned that you moved into located?
MR. HECK: The first – our –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Or the third – it would be the third house, I guess.
MR. HECK: That was – that, that, that would have been about 1958, and we moved to 185 North Purdue. That’s in a duplex across from the brick apartments on North Purdue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, you attended Pine Valley through the fourth grade. Is that right?
MR. HECK: I believe so, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then you guys moved to the point where you attended Woodland School from –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Five through what grade?
MR. HECK: Fifth and sixth, and then that’s where I – that’s where I lived in, though high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was different in the residence in Woodland and the one you lived in in West Pasadena?
MR. HECK: Well, it was – you know, having that – being able to have that duplex – it was a, it was a step up, for us, you know. And that was the first house that we bought. That was the first house that my parents owned.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe the inside of the duplex.
MR. HECK: We lived in the back end of the duplex, which was by choice. That’s where my parents wanted to be. We didn’t, we didn’t – they didn’t want to be in the front. The front door would face the back yard, so we’d – we would come in the kitchen door. And the kitchen door – you’d walk in the kitchen door, and there’d be a little – there was a little dining table there, just for a couple of people. And then you’d go through the kitchen into a dining area where we had a dining room table. And then off to the right would be the living room. And then down the hall, it was three bedrooms, down the hall there was two bedrooms on the left and then a bedroom at the end of the hall and then a bathroom on the right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, this was a block structure?
MR. HECK: Yes, a block duplex.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type heat did that duplex have?
MR. HECK: We had electric heat. I remember electric stack heaters, because those homes had – in the early days they had coal heat; and by the time that we bought that, that my parents bought that, house in 1958, the coal bins were gone, and I’m not sure if there was any coal available after that. So, a lot of people put, I think, oil furnaces in. But initially we had electric stack heaters; and that was expensive, I believe, so my parents invested in a, in a furnace.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the family have an automobile when they came to Oak Ridge?
MR. HECK: I believe so. My father had a – I’ve seen pictures of my father’s car; and it was an old Chrysler, I remember, from the ’30s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then what was the next automobile he had?
MR. HECK: The next automobile that I remember my father having was a Frazer. He had a couple of those. He really liked those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that a Kaiser-Frazer?
MR. HECK: Kaiser-Frazer. It was a – built by the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation. And there was – a Kaiser was a – a Frazer was kind of a, a deluxe Kaiser, I guess you’d say.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that the same company that made refrigerators, too—Kaiser or, or Frazer or something of that nature?
MR. HECK: I know Nash-Kelvinator made –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yeah.
MR. HECK: Made refrigerators.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s what I’m thinking of.
MR. HECK: I’m not – I’m, I’m not sure about Kaiser, but it was – later became Kaiser Jeep Corporation.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now what do you remember about how your father got back and forth to work?
MR. HECK: He, he – we had one car, like most people had in those days, and he drove the car to work. And I don’t know, I guess my mother did her shopping or where she needed to go. But, of course, we had bus lines back in those days, so she was able to ride a bus and get around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about attending Woodland School? How was Woodland School different than Pine Valley School?
MR. HECK: It was, it was a whole lot of the – it was a lot the same. I, I remember when I got to Woodland School, it seemed like that the, that the, the teachers were really good; and the, the students that, that I met, that I was in class with, I got close to really quick, because in those days there were a lot of, of young people, a lot of children in, in Woodland. And so the school was bigger. There were more students there. And it was just a really good place to grow up; I really enjoyed Woodland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what the school was made out of, what kind of material that school was made out of?
MR. HECK: The, the Woodland School was a brick, brick structure, so it seemed to be a little more permanent than some of the schools like Pine Valley that were built earlier.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the teachers seem like young ladies and men at that time?
MR. HECK: Not to me they didn’t. Though looking back on it, you know, they were, they were, they were relatively young.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember some of the classes you took at Woodland?
MR. HECK: Just the basic courses, you know, that, that you take in middle – I do remember I had trouble with – I had a teacher named Ms. Barkley, and she was a wonderful lady. And she was so patient with me. I had trouble in diagramming sentences; that gave me a fit. And she sat down with me and spent extra time with me, and she really put a lot into that just, just because she wanted to help me. And I’ll never, I’ll never forget that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember your other teachers’ names?
MR. HECK: Let’s see. I had a Mrs., Mrs. Dessiker at, at, at Woodland School, I had Ms. Barkley, and in sixth grade I had Ms. Dewer; and she was an older lady. And she had a, a, a reputation for being tough, but she was really a sweet, a sweet lady. And she was the safety patrol – she was head of the safety patrol at Woodland school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, tell me what safety patrol is.
MR. HECK: Well, the students that were – I don’t remember if we were selected or if we, if we volunteered for that duty, but safety patrol’s duty was to stay, stand at, at entrances, at, at entrances to the building and also at crosswalks to keep – to make sure everybody was safe crossing the street or entering the building or exiting the building. And it was just students that, that did that. You had to get up a little early; and you had to stay a little late, so there was a little bit of responsibility to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You were a safety patrol person?
MR. HECK: I was, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How were you – what made you stand out from the other students when you were a safety patrol?
MR. HECK: We wore a – as I recall we had a badge, and it seems like we wore a vest or something that, where the badge was attached so that they could see that we were safety patrol. And some of the, some of the kids, you know, liked to rib us a little bit about it, but that didn’t bother me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you feel like you had a lot of authority when you had that badge on and, and the belt?
MR. HECK: I didn’t feel so much like I had authority, but I felt like that I better do what Ms. Dewer told me, or I’d be in trouble ’cause she, she was pretty – she was stern. She, she wanted us to do our job; and I think it – she knew that it taught us responsibility.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any plays that the school put on you were involved in?
MR. HECK: I do remember a play in second or third grade, and I couldn’t tell you the name of it; and all I remember was that I was that I had stage fright. I was really nervous.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Art and music in your early years at Pine Valley and at Woodland?
MR. HECK: We – I think Oak Ridge was, was ahead of a lot of school systems in those days. We had Art and music, which a lot of systems, I don’t think, did. And I had a – Art was, was probably my favorite subject; I really enjoyed Art. And I had an Art teacher named Mrs. Cole, and she also lived in Woodland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, in between school years during the summer, did you work any at paper routes or any other jobs?
MR. HECK: I did. I started working when I was fourteen, and I’m trying to think – I think I was at eighth grade. I started working for James Chesney in the summer. During the warm months he had the contract to do the mowing for all the James H. Moore apartments in Oak Ridge, and I worked for him. And his son was about my age, and we were good – we were big buddies.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where the James H. Moore apartments were located?
MR. HECK: They were located all over Oak Ridge. I think in those days – I think most, if not all, of the apartments in Oak Ridge were James H. Moore’s.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have any other jobs other than that one?
MR. HECK: In high school I worked for Mrs. Smith at the Cloth Shop. I came in and would clean up; I would wash windows. I worked for the lady Mrs. Muldoon at Merle Norman. I did her windows and cleaned up for her. And the barbershop – I did their windows. There was a laundry back in – this was the Northwestern Plaza, I believe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now this was located in the –
MR. HECK: The Downtown.
MR. HUNNICUTT: New Downtown –
MR. HECK: The new Downtown shopping center that was built in ’55.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, prior to that did you ever collect Coke bottles and sell them and lightning bugs and things of that nature?
MR. HECK: I had some friends that did that, but I never really got involved in that. But now Coke bottles – I did collect some Coke bottles. That was easy money.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me how that worked.
MR. HECK: Well, in those days, you know, the, the sodas all came in returnable bottles; we didn’t have anything that was throw-away, so it was a pretty good – I think it was a – at one point, it was like five cents for a returnable bottle, so we’d go – and didn’t matter how dirty they were. You could take them to the A & P or the Kroger store or wherever and get your, and get your money for them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember any door-to-door salesmen when you lived in Woodland…maybe sold vacuums cleaners or insurance, things of that nature?
MR. HECK: Yes, sure do. We had a, we had a debit insurance man that would come and, and collect insurance. They would come door-to-door and collect the premiums on the insurance. We bought a – my mother wanted me to have a set of encyclopedias, and so we bought the World Books from a, from a salesman.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you ever remember someone coming around in the Woodland area with a little pony, and you could get your picture taken on that pony?
MR. HECK: I remember something vaguely about that. That was a long time ago. That may have been when we were living over on West Pasadena.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There seems to be someone that came around town trying to bend money some sort of fashion in those days.
MR. HECK: One thing I do remember since you mention that – on West Pasadena, you know, we, we had the ice cream trucks that would come around; but there was also a fellow back in those days that had a hand cart – that had a push cart that would come down our street. And he had this push cart with ice cream and popsicles and that kind of thing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember rolling stores that went through the Woodland area –
MR. HECK: I sure do.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And other places?
MR. HECK: We called them peddlers. We sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe that for me.
MR. HECK: The fellas – these fellas that had these rolling stores would come, would come through – would come down a street, and they had fresh produce, they had eggs. And they would stop, and ladies would come out buy the, whatever they had. In fact, I worked with a fella in the Fire Department that did that on his off days.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, how did they know where to stop? Did they just pick a place, or did they blow the horn, or how did people know they were coming?
MR. HECK: I think they had a bell. If I’m not mistaken they had a bell, and when the ladies heard that bell they’d come out. And it was just a good, a good, a good way to, to buy produce and things like that without having to go to the store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, did your mother, when you lived in Woodland, continue to shop at the A & P and not at the Woodland Shopping Center by any –
MR. HECK: I don’t ever remember her shopping at the Woodland Shopping Center. She shopped at A & P.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what type of stores was in the Woodland Shopping Center?
MR. HECK: I remember the IGA store in the Woodland Shopping Center and before that, I, I don’t if it was – if – how long it was an IGA store. I do remember at the Woodland Shopping Center there was a drug store with a soda fountain and a grocery store and what it was before it was IGA, I’m not sure. And there was also a service station. My next door neighbor owned that service station…Hubert Livesay.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever stop there at the drug store on the way in from school?
MR. HECK: Oh, I stopped at the drug store every day.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do in the drug store?
MR. HECK: I’d get a Coke, I’d get a soda if I had a nickel, or I’d get a candy bar if I had a nickel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What does a soda consist of?
MR. HECK: Well, I say soda. Just a, a fountain Coke would be what you would buy, what you would consider a soda there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In those days did they serve their drinks in cups or glasses, or how did they do that?
MR. HECK: In glasses, as I recall.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a bicycle when you were growing up?
MR. HECK: That was the thing that I did more than anything else was ride a bike. I loved riding a bike, and Oak Ridge was a great place for that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Remember the make of the bike you had?
MR. HECK: Western Flyer.
MR. HUNNICUTT: At that time you finished Woodland, and you moved on to the high school; and where – I mean to junior high. Where was junior high for you?
MR. HECK: Robertsville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that school located?
MR. HECK: The location is the same as it is today. It’s Illinois at Robertsville Road.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you get to Robertsville Junior High, as it was called in those days. What did you see a whole lot different than when you were at Woodland?
MR. HECK: It was a much bigger school. We had all different students that I didn’t know. You know, I’d been at Woodland School for all those years, and I met new people. And we had classes that we didn’t have before. It was a big step up for us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ride the bus back and forth to Robertsville?
MR. HECK: I did, and occasionally I’d ride my bike.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were some of the classes that were, was different than in Woodland?
MR. HECK: I remember my father’s first cousin was Frank Heck, and he taught industrial arts…shop. We called it shop, and that’s something that I really enjoyed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do in shop?
MR. HECK: We made things. We made things out of wood. We made things out of – we had metal shop, and he, he was a really good, he was a really good teacher. He was very patient. And that was one of the classes that I really enjoyed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you get involved in any sports when you were in junior high school?
MR. HECK: I ran some track for a little while, and that’s it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Who was the track coach?
MR. HECK: Let’s see. It was Bob Stuhlmiller and Sam Wheeler and who else? I can’t remember; there was another one or two that was involved in that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your dress change when you went to junior high from Woodland?
MR. HECK: Not that I recall. Not, not that I recall. I don’t think –
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of shoes did you wear in those days? Were they lace-up or loafers or boots or what?
MR. HECK: Lace-up. Lace-up and then, and then tennis shoes. We were, we were able to wear tennis shoes some.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, today we call certain shoes that we wear “tennis shoes,” but what did tennis shoes look like in your day?
MR. HECK: They were more traditional, if you know – if you can picture what a traditional tennis shoe looks like, they were nothing like what you see today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: High-tops?
MR. HECK: High-tops. Keds was a big brand, and so that’s, that, that’s what I think of when I think of tennis shoes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go to Jackson Square to do much shopping, or did you attend any movies in Jackson Square?
MR. HECK: I remember going to movies at the Ridge Theater, but most of the movies I went to, it seems like, were at the Grove.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what type of movies did you like to go see?
MR. HECK: On Saturday they had a matinee at the Grove Theater, and they always, they almost always had a horror movie, and that’s what I liked to go see.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, the Grove Theater was located where?
MR. HECK: In Grove Center where the – there’s a church there now. I can’t recall the name of the church.
MR. HUNNICUTT: High Places.
MR. HECK: High Places Church, yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much it cost to get in the movie in those days?
MR. HECK: I want to think it was probably $0.35. Something like that. Maybe $0.25 for a student. It wasn’t much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ride your bicycle to the movies?
MR. HECK: I would ride my bicycle to the movie, or my parents would take me and drop me off and come and get me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How ’bout the skating rink in Jefferson? Did you visit that much?
MR. HECK: I did. I went to the skating rink a time or two. I was never really very good at skating, so I did – but I did, I did go there a time or two.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about during the summer at the swimming pool?
MR. HECK: I did go to the swimming pool a good bit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the swimming pool?
MR. HECK: I just remember that the – I remember the snacks were good, and it was just a good place to go and stay – you know, it was just a good place to visit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the water cold?
MR. HECK: Oh, gosh! The water was – it was spring fed, and the water was freezing cold. But in those days it didn’t bother me. I guess when you’re a kid it just doesn’t bother – didn’t matter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about bowling? Did you attend any bowling alleys?
MR. HECK: I did. I bowled some because the bowling alley was in my neighborhood. It was Downtown…Ark Lanes. That was the new bowling alley; it was built probably late ’50s. And so I did bowl some there, and I remember when I was in scouts, they used to take us bowling some.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, were you a cub scout?
MR. HECK: I was a cub scout.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you remember what pack you belonged to?
MR. HECK: I remember – Den 3 is all I remember. And Mrs. Armstrong lived on West – on Northwestern Avenue; and she was my den mother, and she was a sweetheart. She had a son my age.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the cub scouts. What did you learn from the cub scouts?
MR. HECK: Well, we, we learned – we did all kinds of things. The, the, the people that were involved in the cub scouts – the leaders in the cub scouts were big into camping, and we started going camping. And I really learned from that, and I enjoyed that part of it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And did you –
MR. HECK: Would take us camping.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the cub scouts meet at this lady’s house every –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So often.
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what would you do when you met at her house?
MR. HECK: We would, we would try to get merit – we would go through a book and try to get merit badges, and it was, it was just a learning experience. It was teaching – a teaching experience.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did the cub scouts all meet when they had their full-size meeting?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember exactly where we would meet in those days, other than the scout – the den mother’s home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you go into boy scouts?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t go into boy scout.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did – what type of games did you and your friends in the neighborhood play before, before you got to Robertsville or even after you got to Robertsville? What, what type of games did you guys and gals play?
MR. HECK: We – I was really close to Woodland school (just a short walk) so we had access to all those playgrounds, and we – a big thing for us was in the summertime was softball. We played softball, and we played dodge ball; we played touch football. In fact, even in the back yards we’d get together and have touch football games. That was a big thing for us back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the playground activities at each school during the summertime that the city had?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember much about that. I didn’t get involved in that much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you get involved in any of Shep Lauter’s baseball in the summer time?
MR. HECK: I did, I did one year. I went to – I got involved in that one year for – with Shep Lauter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember where you would go to play ball?
MR. HECK: It seems like to me that we maybe would go to the Boys Club. I, I’m not sure. I believe that’s right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of people were in the neighborhoods? I, I know there was all types of people that came from all over the United States to come to Oak Ridge. What type of people was in your neighborhood in Woodland?
MR. HECK: Well, it was kind of a unique neighborhood because there were all kinds of people. I remember on my street – and in those days you knew everybody. Everybody knew everybody. And there was Joe Falkner; he was a Buick dealer. He lived on my street. Hubert Livesay, was the – who later owned Modern Tire, was on my street. A lot of business people. And then across the street from me from where we lived in the duplex were the Woodland Apartments, and in those apartments in those days were a lot of young professionals. So, there were a lot of nice cars over there, I remember, and I was always a car, car lover, you know, when I was a kid growing up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever go across to the Skyway Drive-In Theater?
MR. HECK: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about the Skyway Drive-In Theater. And where was it located?
MR. HECK: The Skyway was, I believe, the last drive-in in Oak Ridge. It was located where the, I believe, the Super China Buffet, I think that’s what that’s called, is located now. It was across from the old Fire Station No. 3, and that was one of the greatest activities. In the evenings we would sit out in front of the fire station and the traffic going by and we’d – people going into the, to the Skyway Drive-In, you know. And that was a – it was a – I know – I do remember that it was extremely clean, and the food was good. They had a great snack bar, and it was a really drive-in theater.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, did – when you drove up, did you pay one price whether you had two people or a car load in the, in the car?
MR. HECK: Everybody had to pay. But in those days, I think that – I’ve heard of some people maybe sneaking in the back or maybe getting into the trunk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In the trunk of the car and going in?
MR. HECK: Yeah, yeah. We tried –
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then getting out when you got in there?
MR. HECK: Yeah, we tried that once. It didn’t work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It didn’t –
MR. HECK: It didn’t work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What happened?
MR. HECK: Mr. Pemberton was the – ran the, ran the drive-in, and so I guess he just saw us get out and get in the car. This was when I was in high school, so Mr. Pemberton walked over to the car; and he said, “Well, it looks like you’ve gained a few.” He said, “You’ve got a choice. You can leave, or you can pay.” And so we stayed, and we paid. But we didn’t fool him.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when you drove in to the drive-in, tell me how did you hear the, the, the voice over the – over what? I mean, how did you know what they were saying?
MR. HECK: Well, the drive-in, drive-ins had a, had a, a little, a little hump that you pulled up on so that your car would sit so that you could see the screen, and you would sit next to a pole. And on the pole was a speaker, and you just take a speaker and had a volume control and just – you hang the speaker on your window, and it was real important to remember to take the speaker off the window and hang it back on the post before you left, because you’d take your window out if you didn’t do that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember them having bingo at – during – between the movies at the drive-in?
MR. HECK: They sure did. I’d forgotten about that, but they sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, when the movie was over, did they make an announcement about reminding you to put that speaker on the pole?
MR. HECK: I think they did. I think they did, and if you didn’t get in too big a hurry and leave before they could – you know, it was a good reminder, but –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you were in high school, was that a dating place?
MR. HECK: It was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you sit on the front row?
MR. HECK: I would sit on the front row or somewhere near the front row.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever attend the Museum of – the Atomic Museum down at Jefferson when it was down there?
MR. HECK: I sure did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about that?
MR. HECK: The static electricity generating – whatever they call that. I do remember that. And I also remember the, the dimes, the irradiated dimes. I remember those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get one of those?
MR. HECK: As I recall, you gave them a dime, and they put some kind of a source on it and put it in a little case and gave it back to you. And it had a little – had a label on it that told you what it was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you like to go to the museum?
MR. HECK: I did. I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you visit it fairly often?
MR. HECK: Once in a while, I would go to the museum. It was interesting.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to pay to get in?
MR. HECK: I don’t remember. I don’t remember if you did or didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about the other shopping center down at Jefferson? Did, did you ever visit down there very much?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t know much about that. I – you know, we were pretty mobile on – you know, kids in those days could get on their bikes and go all over town, but I didn’t get that far down. I spent a lot of time in the shopping center. That was a good place to go.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The – what other special events or places do you remember?
MR. HECK: In Oak Ridge?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. HECK: In those days?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. HECK: One thing that I remember that I thought was really neat is – I said I’m – I enjoy working on cars, and in the late ’50s, I believe it was ’59, maybe 1960, there was an auto show in the Downtown shopping center parking lot. And it was, it was all the dealers in Oak Ridge, and some dealers in Knoxville brought cars; it was there for several days. And also, they used to have rallies. They had sports car rallies. They’d set up cones, and they’d have rallies in the parking lot.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when you left Robertsville Junior High and attended the high school, what grades was in the high school at that time?
MR. HECK: That would – in – at that time it was ten, ten through twelve.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what did you see different when you left junior high and went to the high school?
MR. HECK: Well, it was just a different world. You know, it was just a part of growing up, I guess. I really had a little trouble taking to it at first, because I, I enjoyed junior high. I enjoyed it; and it was, it was, it was a little bit of a shock, so it was a little bit of adjustment for me there. But, but I got, I got used to it; and I did fine.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, all the time that you were in school up to the high school, did you have physical education classes?
MR. HECK: Yes. Every year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And when you went to Robertsville Junior High and you took gym, did you have to have a certain type of uniform or shorts or shirt to wear?
MR. HECK: As I recall, we had to have tennis shoes, white, white socks, tennis shoes, and shorts, white shorts, and a t-shirt.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what kind of activities did you do in gym?
MR. HECK: A little of everything…a little rope climbing, dodge ball, gymnastics; just a little bit of everything…basketball.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a new thing for you to have to take a shower after you had gym class, or did you have to do that in junior high?
MR. HECK: We did, we did. And it was, it was, it was kind of odd, but it was just part of growing up, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, now we’re in high school. What’s some of the classes you took in high school?
MR. HECK: I, I took all the required courses…algebra. And I guess my biggest – I enjoyed the science classes. In junior high, as well, I enjoyed the science classes; it was my favorite.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what did you do in the science classes? Did you have –
MR. HECK: We had some that had labs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Labs? And what happens in a science lab?
MR. HECK: You do experiments, and you do – we did, we did all kinds of things. We actually did some dissecting of, of frogs and all that kind of thing, and I kind of enjoyed that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who your teacher was?
MR. HECK: In junior high my science teacher for two years was John Price, and I can’t remember my high school teacher’s name in science.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now Mrs. Perry was a high school teacher. Did you – biology – did you ever have her?
MR. HECK: No, I don’t think – I remember Ms. Perry, but I don’t think she taught – she was my teacher.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a locker to put your books and things in when you were in, even in junior high?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And when you were in high school, as well?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you remember what time school started and got out in high school?
MR. HECK: I do remember some in the winter time it being dark. I would be in class; it would still be dark, so it must have been pretty early. I guess classes started at 8:00 and ran until 3:00 or so.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the schools warm? All the schools you attended, were they warm?
MR. HECK: I didn’t remember being cold or being uncomfortable.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there air conditioning in the schools?
MR. HECK: No, no air conditioning, but, but it was warm.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you just opened the windows?
MR. HECK: Opened the windows.
MR. HUNNICUTT: [inaudible 00:46:21] cooling?
MR. HECK: Natural ventilation.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports in high school?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember who some of the teachers, other teachers were in the high school at that time?
MR. HECK: Mr. – I’m trying to think of the teacher’s name that I liked so well. He, he – I can’t think of his name right now. He passed away young. I talked to his parents recently, and they said that he, he, he died in a car crash; and I remember it was really upsetting to me because I really liked him. Bogel. Mr. Bogel. Bob Bogel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you start dating when you were in high school?
MR. HECK: I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your parents strict on you about dating?
MR. HECK: They were strict on me about everything. [laughter]
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you think that was good or bad?
MR. HECK: I think it was good. Absolutely.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, where did – what places did you go to on dates?
MR. HECK: We’d go to the drive-in. The big thing in those days was to take your date to Shoney’s and sit at the curb. And then sometimes you might go to another student’s house or something like that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about dances, school dances? Did you attend those?
MR. HECK: I did. We had dances at the center – where the Senior Center is now, the Wildcat Den, and also at the National Guard Armory. We used to have dances there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have an automobile at that time to use?
MR. HECK: No, I didn’t have an – I used my, I used my parents’ car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that a chore to, to be able to use the family car for dates?
MR. HECK: It wasn’t a problem. They were really generous with me about that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, you’ve graduated from Oak Ridge High School in what year?
MR. HECK: 1966.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What happened then?
MR. HECK: I went to, I went to East Tennessee State University in fall of ’66.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And how long did you attend?
MR. HECK: I attended East Tennessee State University from fall of ’66 through, I believe, spring of ’72. I came, came back to Oak Ridge and went to work.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what was your job when you came back?
MR. HECK: I worked for an insurance company for about two years, and I was an insurance adjustor; and then in 1975 I got a call from the fire chief in Oak Ridge. His name was Ralph MacMahan; his son was a friend of mine. And he asked me if I was interested in a job with the Fire Department, and it kind of took me aback just a little bit. I said, “Well, I don’t know; tell me about it.” And so he started telling me about it, and the thing that, I think, that caught my – that really caught my ear was that it was a job that you, that you worked every third day. And I thought, “That really sounds good.” So, I came and interviewed, and, and he hired me.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And you were about, what, 27 years old?
MR. HECK: Twenty seven.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what do you recall your first day on the Fire Department was like?
MR. HECK: Friend of mine, still a friend of mine, Mark Elmore was, was – he’d been there just a few months before me, so he kind of was learning the ropes, too; but he, he knew more than I did. And I remember they told me, “When we get an alarm, just climb on the back of the truck, and we’ll tell you what to do. Don’t do anything until you’re told what to do.” And that’s what I did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you report to, to the first job?
MR. HECK: My first, my first assignment was at the old Fire Station No. 3. That was at 361 South Illinois Avenue.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And do you recall some of the stories the firemen told you about early Oak Ridge things that happened?
MR. HECK: Yes. It was – I was really fortunate to work with several of the, of the older fire fighters that had been there when they organized the Fire Department in 1943; and I, I worked with several of them. My first captain was Carl Ford. He was a fine man. He was an excellent, he was an excellent fire officer. He, he was promoted early; he was a captain by, I believe, 1946, so he, he got a promotion early. And he was, he was a very hard working fellow, disciplined; and he was intelligent. He had an eighth grade education, but he was really sharp. And he taught me a lot, not just about firefighting but about other things, too, so I was really lucky to have someone like him to mentor me back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of other stories do you recall that he told you?
MR. HECK: He’d tell me stories about the early days and how many runs they would have and how they would practice all day just – they – in the early days of the Fire Department – and it carries through to today. The Oak Ridge Fire Department is a very well trained fire department, and they really put a lot of emphasis on training and repetition. And my boss’s philosophy was you do it, and you do it over and over and over until it becomes second nature to you…your skills that you learned. And so they would do that, and they’d be worn out. They’d come in and try to get a little something to eat, and then they’d get a big fire somewhere. And so they’d just be completely worn out.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the fire station you first went to work at – did they have a fire pole in that station?
MR. HECK: No, they didn’t. It was a brick building that was built, I believe, about 1950. But it did not – it was all on one level, so it didn’t have a fire pole.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what type of training did you have to have to become a fireman?
MR. HECK: Well, in those days you just had to have a clean record and a high school diploma. And they, they did, they did – they trained you on the job. And it was a pretty, pretty intensive training; for one year you pretty much trained all the time. And then, of course, your training continued after that, but the first year you just learned the basics.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the first fire you responded to…what was your job, and how did you react?
MR. HECK: The first time that I went to a fire I remember my captain (Captain Ford) – we – of course, we, we put on air packs – we were using air packs and our turnout gear, and I was dressed out. And those older guys, they didn’t do that. They didn’t wear air packs; they didn’t believe in it. And I do remember him standing to – at the door, and he handed me the hose line. And there was another fellow behind me, and he said – he pushed me in. And, fortunately, it wasn’t a really hot fire, but it was a – it was a little bit intimidating at first, but it just, just something you get used to over time. But –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was this a house fire?
MR. HECK: No, it was a commercial fire. It was in what we – what used to be the old Wender building near Jackson Square.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where the Oak Ridger used to be?
MR. HECK: I think there was a package store there then. Yeah, where the Oak – in that building, where the Oak Ridger used to be. On the west end of that building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That’s Tyrone Road.
MR. HECK: Tyrone Road. On the west end of that building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, before you got to the, to the fire, you put on your fire gear, which consisted of what?
MR. HECK: Your turnout gear is your bucker pants , your protective pants, and boots—rubber boots in those days, and some of us had leather boots; but in those days we all, we all had rubber boots. Then you have a, you have a coat, a Nomex coat, to protect you from the heat, you buttoned – you button all that up, and you have a hood that you, that you pull up over your head; and then you have a face piece for your air pack, and your hood covers your face. You don’t have any exposed skin. And then your helmet and your gloves and your air pack, and you take a tool with you so that you can make a forcible entry if you need to.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of tool would that be?
MR. HECK: Most, most fire fighters would carry a Halligan bar, which is a kind of a multi-purpose tool or a fire ax, which is another tool that is particular to the fire service. Then the operator or whoever was driving the truck would set the pump up, get a water supply, and he would start laying out, laying out equipment that would be needed later on in the fire and have that all laid out for the fire fighters.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, back at the fire station before you had an alarm, did you have your boots and your pants all kind of rolled in a position so all you had to do was step in there and pull them up?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And your jackets were – all this equipment was real compact in the area where you could get to it quickly?
MR. HECK: Where you could step into your pants and pull your, pull your pants up and, well, your suspenders, put your coat on, your hood, your air pack, your helmet and gloves, and you’re ready to go.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, what were the helmets made out of?
MR. HECK: The, the latest helmets are composite or a composite material. Back in those days, the early days, they had leather helmets, and by the time I started in the fire service they’d gotten away from the leather helmets.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I’ll ask you a question that they all – that I’ve always heard. Why does firemen wear suspenders?
MR. HECK: Well, I’ve got the answer. Do you want me to tell you?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Yes.
MR. HECK: To keep their pants up.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Good answer. [laughter] Now, where did you ride on the fire truck going to the fire?
MR. HECK: Well, the, the old, the old trucks where I rode – by the time I came to work in 1975, we had jump seats, which were rear-facing seats behind – in the back of the cab. But you were out in the weather, but you were not – you were outside, but you were not in the weather exactly. You had – you know, you’d be out of the rain. But the newer trucks all have –
MR. HUNNICUTT: But it was an open atmosphere –
MR. HECK: It was a –
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where you rode?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the driver and the co-driver, co-pilot in the front – were they enclosed inside?
MR. HECK: Yes, the captain and the operator were in an enclosed cabin. Now, we did have some trucks when I first started where you had to ride the tailboard, and that was kind of – there was a little bit of a trick to that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, what color were the fire trucks when you went to work for the Fire Department?
MR. HECK: Yellow. That started in 1968.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the reason for that?
MR. HECK: Visibility. Back in those days, you know, all the lights on the trucks were – you just had one beacon in the center of the cab, and you might have a couple lights on the back. And so the yellow trucks were more visible at night, and that was the reasoning behind that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, I notice today we have different sirens than we had back many years ago. What type of siren did you have when you worked with the Fire Department?
MR. HECK: When I came to work we had electronic sirens, and they’re just – they change – you can – well, a switch you can change the tone of the siren for different pitches and different tones. And that worked fine, but the old style mechanical sirens were much louder; and what they determined – what they figured – what they learned in the ’70s was that cars with air conditioners and people playing radios and the windows rolled up, these people weren’t hearing us. And so, starting 20-25 years ago, the fire service started going back to these old-style mechanical sirens that really make a lot of noise; but they still have electronic sirens, also.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, did that particular type of fire truck carry sections of fire hose?
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what was the job of the person to – describe how they got the sections of fire hose off the truck.
MR. HECK: The hose was laid in the back of the truck in such a way so that it would come off – it would come off automatically if you – for instance, a firefighter that was riding on the back of the truck, if he was the hydrant man, the truck would stop and he would get a hydrant wrench, and he would take off just a couple flakes of that hose and put his knee on it, and he would motion the driver to go on. So then the truck – he would go to the hydrant and hook up to the hydrant, and the, the hose would lay out of the back of the truck. And when they got to the fire, then operator then would break the hose and connect it into the, into the pump intake.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what type of material the hose was made out of?
MR. HECK: The hose that we had had a nylon – was a rubber hose, rubber liner with a nylon cover on it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How were they connected?
MR. HECK: With couplings. One coupling of the male coupling had a thread, and then the female coupling was a – had a swivel, and then you would connect it by, by doing that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the hydrant man would get to the hydrant, he’d hook up the hose to the hydrant –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then the other end of the hose was hooked up where?
MR. HECK: The – when the truck stopped, when the truck stopped, then the operator of the truck would get out, and he would break the, the connection. He would break the hose, and he would put the hose into the, the, the pump intake on the, on the pump. Then the, the hydrant man would be at the hydrant, and he would signal for the hydrant man to turn the water on. Now, a lot of times the, the captain would put a hose clamp on the hose, so that meant he could – that the hydrant man could go ahead and turn the hydrant on, turn the water on, any time, and then when the operator was ready for the water, then he could release the hose clamp. That was an ideal way to do it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, the hose is hooked to the side of the fire truck, and there is a pump in the fire truck, and –
MR. HECK: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That supplies the water to the, to the fire?
MR. HECK: To the hose line and to the fire fighters. Then, then the hydrant man would come back to the truck, and he would team with the other fire fighter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How many years did you work with the Fire Department?
MR. HECK: Thirty four.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did – do you think the Fire Department today is trained better than it was when you worked with them?
MR. HECK: Yes, I do. They do more. We learned the basics, and we were really good at what we did; but these guys today – they do so much more than we did. And they, they have to do the basics and the firefighting and so much more. They’re so much more involved in, in the emergency medical work than we were.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you were living at – growing up in Oak Ridge, did you feel safe in the city?
MR. HECK: Absolutely. It was a safe place to live.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you meet your future – your wife, your future wife?
MR. HECK: I met her in – at – I actually met her at the fire station. She did some work for us, and we married in 1996.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what’s her name, and where did you get married?
MR. HECK: We married – we got – her name is Carol Parchman. She’s from Clarksville, Tennessee. We married in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You have children?
MR. HECK: I have two grown children.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They went through the Oak Ridge school system?
MR. HECK: They went through the Oak Ridge school system with the exception of my son. He went to Gatlinburg Pitman High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you feel the Oak Ridge school system was an above average school system –
MR. HECK: Absolutely.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Or average?
MR. HECK: Absolutely. Above average.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to talk about at this time?
MR. HECK: I want to tell you one funny story, and then since we’re talking about fire trucks and fire hose – Back in the old days, this is just a story that I heard, and one of the old captains told me this, when the trucks stopped, that was a signal for the hydrant man who was on the back of the truck to get off and catch the hydrant. Well, they were on their way to a fire, and for some reason this operator stopped. I don’t know if there was a car that crossed in front of him or something, but, anyway, they weren’t anywhere near the fire. Well, the hydrant man gets off like he always does, and he catches the hydrant, and the truck goes on. And by the time – and when they got to the fire, they didn’t have any hose. [laughter] But fortunately, you know, they’re not the only ones that were responding; other trucks came in and took care of everything, but this is one of those things that can happen, you know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, to sum up growing in Oak Ridge, what would you say your experience has been?
MR. HECK: It’s, it’s been a great place to live. I live here now, because I choose to live here. And it was a great place to grow up; it was a great place to raise a family, and I, I’ve really enjoyed my time in Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, David, it’s been my pleasure to interview you; and I know that your oral history will be a treasure to someone in the future to learn about how life was in Oak Ridge and –
MR. HECK: So –
MR. HUNNICUTT: I thank you very much for your time.
MR. HECK: Thank you.
[End of Interview]
[Editor’s Note: This transcript has been edited at Mr. Heck’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.]